Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have determined that toothed whales lack functional Mx genes—a surprising discovery, since all 56 other sequenced mammals in the study possess these genes to fight ...

Almost since the time of Melville's epic hunt, scientists have been fascinated by the remarkable attributes of the sperm whale and its kin, the smaller pigmy and dwarf whales. Capable of diving to great depths and gifted ...

Foraging animals tread a narrow metabolic tightrope, rationing the energy they expend in the pursuit of food to make the most of a catch. And marine mammals that dive on a single breath of air have to be even more frugal ...

Observers on a NOAA Fisheries marine mammal survey some 200 miles off the coast of Central California had spotted the telltale signs of a killer whale attack through high-powered binoculars a few miles away. Frenzied swimming ...

"Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part," wrote Herman Melville in Moby Dick. Today, we no longer dread whales, but their subtlety remains. "For ...

When it comes to monitoring the abundance and behaviors of whales, most research and conservation efforts rely on visual observations. People go out on a boat and systematically scan the ocean, clipboard in hand. "But the ...

Sperm whale family

PhyseteroideaKogiidae

The sperm whale family, or sperm whales, is a common name for the family Physeteridae or superfamily Physeteroidea. The three existing species of whale are the Sperm Whale, in the genus Physeter, and the Pygmy Sperm Whale and Dwarf Sperm Whale, in the genus Kogia. In the past these genera have sometimes been united in the single family, Physeteridae, with the two Kogia species in a subfamily (Kogiinae), however recent practice is to allocate the genus Kogia to its own family, Kogiidae, leaving Physeteridae as a monotypic (single extant species) family, although additional fossil representatives of both families are known (see "Evolution"). The name Sperm Whale comes from sailors of whaling boats who thought that the spermaceti on the whales head was actual sperm from the reproductive system.